Your Home For College Hoops
Sunday, January 19, 2025
Connecticut will ride their guards as much as possible this season. Given their personnel, that’s about their only choice, and it’s also where their most natural leaders are. That includes the one who didn’t score for much of Friday’s win over Harvard largely because he was busy helping others do that.
If you envisioned Providence being 7-2 as they head into a break for final exams, you could easily have been right. But chances are, you didn’t think they would look the way they have thus far. You probably figured they would have a few more than five scholarship players healthy to go.
Rhode Island has a lot of issues for this season’s team. They haven’t been a good defensive team and have been out-rebounded by more than six per game on the season. Offensively, there appear to be bigger challenges, and turnovers were an unexpected one in their loss at Providence on Thursday night.
History nearly repeated itself in Yale’s win at Bryant on Wednesday night. Fortunately, it didn’t, and they started off a tough road stretch with a much-needed win as well as some positive developments.
Final exams may have arrived at just the right time for UMass. The Minutemen are off for 10 days before their next game, and there is plenty to work on in between finishing the semester if Tuesday night’s 72-66 win at Northeastern is any indication.
A look back at Sunday’s games at the Hoop Mountain Prep Classic, which had some good matchups in store among the seven games on the slate. A couple of them were big upset bids in matchups of teams from NEPSAC Class AAA and Class AA.
Bryant didn’t just beat Army 70-59; they beat another opponent for the first time, and did so short-handed and in a home gym that looked nothing like it had before in the program’s Division I history.
Mississippi State is now 2-5 on the young season and has not looked good often. The Bulldogs are trying to manage through youth and injuries in new head coach Rick Ray’s first season at the helm, and they especially show up at the offensive end.
All things considered, Brown could certainly be worse off than their 3-3 record after Thursday night’s win over Sacred Heart. In that game, the Bears showed what may be their identity this season, and it made the difference in the game and may make one for the season.
George Mason has won three in a row and is 5-2, which looks like a good record. But that masks the fact that they aren’t playing the way they want to, and as such have clear room to grow with all their talent.
